Cooling Time
by Flame Swordmistress
Summary: [Atop the Fourth Wall] Christmas Eve 2012 finds Harvey Finevoice on his concert tour, still attempting to piece together what happened when tensions ran high in Linkara's apartment at Halloween. But Minnesota isn't quite ready to let him alone. Oneshot.


I have become ridiculously addicted to Atop the Fourth Wall. The reviews are fun and enjoyable but dear lord, I can't get enough of the storylines. Even though most of these characters started as one-off gags, they've becoming incredibly interesting and increasingly complex people. Hail to the great Lewis Lovhaug, who owns Harvey and the rest of these fine folks.

I'm pretty sure this snippet doesn't fit into canon anymore but I wanted to get it posted now before it gets jossed completely tomorrow with the wrapping-up of the storyline. Happy Christmas.

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If that phone rang one more time, Harvey Finevoice was going to smash it. He hadn't taken two steps into the hotel room and already it was making a racket like a sick cat. He swiped up some envelope that had been slipped under the door on his way in and dropped to the edge of the bed to answer the ringing. He had half a mind to just unplug the damn thing.

"Y'ello?"

"Finevoice, I need to work out the set times for tomorrow with you."

Harvey sighed, leaning back against the headboard and hanging his hat up on the bedpost. "Verne, I been up on that stage all day. If you don't have a Christmas Day program put together by now-"

"We're just about done, we just wanted to push your first set back to six thirty."

"That is not going to happen." No matter how many times he argued with this idiot in charge of putting together the holiday concerts, the guy never seemed to get any smarter. "I got things to do at night on my own time and I ain't cancellin' 'em just 'cause you can't read my contract correctly."

Harvey glanced at the paper he'd picked up on the way in. It looked like a letter of some kind. It was rare that he got mail while he was on tour. For the most part it was just the bulk junk that went to every hotel room; he moved around too quickly for most mail to reach him so he just had everything forwarded for him to read when he got home.

He picked up the little white envelope and flipped it over. The address and hotel room number were handwritten, not typed. That was getting more and more unusual in this age of printers and emails and what have you. The postmark…was in Minnesota.

"You know what, Verne?" he interrupted the voice on the other end of the line. "Can I call you back?"

"Finevoice, we've gotta get this finalized in an hour!"

"I know, I know. Keep your shirt on. You'll have your schedule before your deadline." He hung up the phone without waiting for an answer, cutting the protests off in mid-word and sending the hotel room into silence.

Minnesota. How on earth had they managed to track him down? The kid was resourceful, Harvey knew. The reviewer had probably gotten in contact with his agent and wrestled the tour schedule and hotel bookings out of him.

Few things rattled Harvey Finevoice anymore, but it took him the better part of five minutes to work up the nerve to open the envelope. After the incident at Halloween where everyone in the apartment had been turned against each other, the singer needed time to himself. Something had come close to snapping in him and he needed to figure out what before things got out of hand. Whether he should return home once the tour was over or should get away from the Minnesota apartment permanently was something he hadn't figured out yet. Things were still too jumbled and an attempt by any of his friends to push him one way or the other would only confuse things further.

There were times he had considered calling, but a phone call would be hell. Everybody trying to put on cheerful facades, trying to pretend like nothing was wrong, 'How are you doing, Harvey?' 'How are the shows going?' 'Do you have an ETA on coming home?' He couldn't take that kind of stress right now. It would only serve to put him in a worse mood and would darken the moods of everybody in the apartment.

Inside the envelope was one of the plainest Christmas cards he'd ever seen in his life: just an old black-and-white photograph of a heavily decorated tree on the front. He opened it up…

There was no typing on the inside. Instead, a single handwritten line jumped out at him.

_Merry Christmas, Harvey._

Below, in a neat print that matched the top line, was written _Linkara_. Beneath that, in a messy scrawl, _90's Kid._ Then _Pollo. Boffo_. _Linksano_. _Liz_. And some Japanese chicken scratch that he'd bet his hat read _Ninja-Style Dancer_.

His hand tightened on the card, if ever so slightly. Linkara had done this on purpose. There was no 'we miss you', or 'please come back' or 'we're having a great time without you, please stay gone.' Not even a 'good luck on tour.' Any of those things would have messed with his head. Linkara had known that. The kid, for any of his faults, was an astute judge of character. Just _Merry Christmas, Harvey_.

Out there, probably buried under three feet of Minnesota snow, was an apartment full of good people, good friends, who just wanted him to have a good holiday.

Harvey couldn't help smiling to himself. It wasn't easy to send a completely neutral message, and far less so to combine it with a Christmas card. Leave it to Linkara to find a way.

"Thanks, kid," he said to the air.

He set the card on the wooden nightstand beside the hotel bed, affording it a little place of honor between the phone and his cigarette pack.

There would be partying tomorrow, with booze and ladies and music that was closer to the styles he loved than the crap on the radio nowadays. He would sing, some wise guy would crack jokes, and maybe the mistletoe would help some poor joker get lucky. He might show a few ladies a good time. But tonight he had a group of friends – a family – who refused to leave him completely alone but cared enough to step back and let him work things out his own way.

Given the circumstances, Harvey honestly couldn't have thought of a better present.


End file.
